Apparently Trump’s feelings were hurt after the North Koreans said mean things! The Washington Post: President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned summit next month with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, citing “tremendous anger and open hostility” from the rogue nation in a letter explaining his abrupt decision. “I feel it is inappropriate, at […]

Our panopticon is on track: Powered by artificial intelligence, Rekognition can identify, track, and analyze people in real time and recognize up to 100 people in a single image. It can quickly scan information it collects against databases featuring tens of millions of faces, according to Amazon. Amazon is marketing Rekognition for government surveillance. […]

Happy Labor Day to everyone taking the day off. This year, it’s a paid holiday for me. Last year, it wasn’t. I paid for this day off out of my own pocket. That’s the price you sometimes pay as a contractor. There are a lot more contractors since 2008. The number one problem with this economy as I see it is income instability. That’s when you can’t count on your hours, that the site will stay open, that your start-up might close, that your second job is shopping yourself for the next gig. That’s what’s undermining the middle class. You can’t buy a house, buy a car, have a family, save, take a vacation or keep our consumer based economy going strong when you’re always looking over your shoulder for the guy who is going to lay you off.

Some billionaire entrepreneurs will tell you that fluid labor laws are essential to innovation and making piles of cash. This is not true. Piles of cash were still attainable when we were all gainfully employed in steady jobs.Maybe the piles weren’t quite so high but how many yachts do you need?

In any case, people need breaks or they burn themselves out. So, today, remember the union guys who picketed and stood their ground and gave us the weekend and Labor Day.

Joe Biden and Tim Kaine are in Pittsburgh for a speech and parade. I got up too late to attend but will try to follow up on this later today.

“Let’s fight the right wing, all workers unite”

Best way to fight: VOTE. Pennsylvania residents have until October 11 to register. Do it now.

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Looking ahead:

1.) Today the press starts flying in the same plane as Hillary instead of trailing behind her jet. That should be fun. Her crew has probably thoughtfully replaced the flotation devices in their seat cushions with anchors and the oxygen with nitrous oxide. “Oh, yeah? Who’s laughing now, Andrea??” Maybe Bill will plan the in-flight meals. All vegan. But not the tasty vegan. More of the macrobiotic vegan from 30 years ago with nutritional yeast and bean sprouts. Yum.

2.) The New York Times seems to be going out of its way to Gore Hillary. I’m not linking to any of the articles because why give them clicks? But I will say that after registering voters in predominantly black neighborhoods for the past 6 weeks, I see no lack of enthusiasm for Hillary. The comments on the article were turned off so volunteers can’t give their point of view. Well, we don’t really count anyway, right?

3.) Speaking of getting Gored, the media went on the attack against Gore in 2000. It probably cost him the presidency. Sure, Naderites helped but it shouldn’t have been so close going into the final stretch. Same with Kerry. He was Swift-boated mercilessly and that really contributed to the closeness of the race. Now, it’s Hillary. It’s ALWAYS been Hillary.

I’m trying to find a good explanation why the media seems to be doubling down on her when the alternative is indisputably worse in every possible way. Simplest explanations tend to be the most accurate so I’m going to say that a very large part of it can be attributed to the fact that she is a woman. I say this because the drumbeat of negative coverage of her has been relentless since she went to Washington and from the very beginning defined herself as an atypical first lady. She was clearly feminist, intelligent and not about to let herself get relegated to teas and decorating. There was a cadre of women a little older than her who just missed the cultural revolution, the pill and feminism. And there were plenty of men who weren’t used to talking to a woman as an equal in the halls of power. They weren’t going to let her skirt their rigid rules of gender behavior and get away with it.

But you know, this has gone on for way too long now. Hillary has become a formidable politician in her own right, separate from her husband. It hasn’t stopped the attacks or the coverage of her using the Clinton Rules:

1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” and mainstream media outlets

2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world.

3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there’s hard evidence otherwise.

4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America’s royal family

5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefit

As we have seen, it’s not just the Clintons that get this kind of coverage. Gore and Kerry also got it, although Clinton’s seems to be an order of magnitude worse and this has been backed up with a Harvard study.

Curiously, Obama did not get this kind of coverage.

There could be several reasons for this. One is that racism was a shameful thing 8 years ago. Two is that it was a “change election”. Three is something a little less tangible and something I have been trying to explain for 8 years now: Obama is one of them. He is from their class. He’s the Harvard educated lawyer with a fondness for the conventional values and ambitions of the country club Republican class. Note that Michelle was not actively (or publicly) involved in creating policy. She’s the Stay At Home Mom with the garden. That was dog-whistling to the media that he wasn’t going to break any new ground culturally. He’s the guy the financiers love because he’s got status written all over him. He was their human shield against the rabble who wanted the bankers’ heads and higher taxes for the upper crust. Well, we couldn’t have that. They’ll never trust Hillary because they suspect she’s just a bit more liberal than they’re comfortable with.

Anyway, we’re all worse off because the media decided to jump on the bandwagon to gore Gore and Swift-boat Kerry. Hillary seems to be holding her own right now. Trump seems to have a ceiling because he’s only been able to capture the white male vote. There’s a good probability that Hillary is going to be president. But there’s still some volatility too. None of the volunteers I work with are taking this race casually. And we are still getting people who are volunteering voluntarily. I witnessed this yesterday when one of my young black female millenial volunteers registered another young, black millenial female who then OFFERED to volunteer for us.

Take that, New York Times.

I get the feeling that the media right now is reveling in the scads of money they are making off this election. Pumping up Trump and Sanders paid off big for them. It narrowed what should have been a blowout for Hillary. And they sort of have to keep the pressure up now because the candidates are so unequal in every way that to portray them accurately at this point would make it clear who the president should be. There really is no question. But the media needs a photo finish. I guess they think that even bad news is good and if the worst happens, they can always tell Trump that they made him and they can unmake him.

That’s a dangerous game because this guy will hold a grudge forever and use every trick in the book, which is formidable for a president, to take down his enemies. We aren’t talking about a Nixon here. Nixon was subtle compared to Trump. Letting this genie out of the bottle will backfire badly for the media. They need to think this over and decide if they can live with a Madame President who’s a feminazi libtard or a malignant narcissist with his own white nationalist militia and the power to make their lives a lot more miserable than alfalfa sprouts and squishy veggie burgers on Hill Force One.

Lol!! Kellyanne thinks she’s a chess master. Of COURSE they need Pennsylvania. They need it very badly. We literally are the keystone state this year. And no one in Hillary’s campaign here is taking this lightly. We are all dead serious that this is going to be a battleground. We’ve been warned to not get complacent.

I don’t think Hillary is going to have a problem in PA. She’s a much more natural fit for PA much as she in Florida. However that being said it’s a good thing she is not taking it for granted. She’s not even taking Utah!!! for granted.

As you pointed out, the Corporate Media has gone in the tank for the GOP against every Democratic candidate starting with Carter, except for Obama (perhaps due to fear of the scarlet “R”).

However, Bill won two elections in spite of the media, and the 2000 and 2004 elections were so close that the GOP probably cheated to win, despite the media’s bashing of Gore and Kerry.

Too many people have learned to doubt the Corporate Media. It has lost much of its former influence.

Demographically, the USA is a very different country now than it was in 2000, or even 2004. The Orange Grifter is getting hammered 70-19 among Latino voters, the fastest-growing demographic bloc of voters in the USA.

I think you’re right. Too many of us are figuring out how badly we were burned during the 2000 campaign. We had 8 years of bush and endless war. He made the terrorism problem worse. I can only imagine how Gore would have handled 9/11. Well, for one thing, Gore is such a geek that I don’t think he would have ignored the warnings. He would have been all over that.
And then he would have stopped with Afghanistan. We would never have gone to Iraq.
So much pain, death and fear because Of Bush v Gore.
Then there was Obama failing to hold the financial industry accountable and letting homeowners go under. Shameful.
It’s hard not to notice how the media has had a hand in these catastrophes. They didn’t just report the news and draw logical conclusions. The manipulated the viewer with carefully crafted narratives. You gotta wonder who they’re really working for.

No wonder to it. Media barons are fat cats; naturally, they support their fellow fat cats. The barons’ subordinates know what will advance their careers and what won’t. No literal, blatant censorship is needed.

If the Orange Grifter really does have Putin’s hand up his @$$, I must wonder what is wrong with Putin. The Grifter has publicly wondered why we can’t use our nuclear weapons–and Putin wants to put our nukes, most of which are still aimed at Mother Russia, under control of a short-fused malignant narcissist? (thanks for the phrase)

I knew Putin was a ruthless mofo, but I thought he was a smart ruthless mofo.

If the Corporate Media applied the Clinton Rules to Trump, Gary Johnson would finish second. 😛

The only serious fear I have concerns those Madoka-damned vote-counting computers, and Putin’s hackers. However, it seems the majority of our national security mavens do not want the Grifter, who would gut our foreign policy to the benefit of his puppeteer, Putin–so I hope that means the counter-measures are ready.

Though Pooty-Poot should take care if, Madoka forbid, he succeeds in installing the Donald. His predecessor, Stalin, thought he had “the Adolf” in his pocket–then on the morning of June 22, 1941, Uncle Joe woke up with Der Fuehrer’s “friendship” buried between his shoulder blades.

I agree that Putin seems like he should be too smart to want to install the Becheetoed Baloney. But Putin came up through — and ran — the KGB (approx = CIA, but also does internal “security”). It would be within his MO to try to increase the levels of begrudgery and suspicions of vote fraud and general loss of faith in institutions. In the long term, that sort of thing weakens a country a lot. And for that, the Blob of Baloney is a very useful idiot.

I agree with you about independent contractors needing time off. I now have worked my way “up” to this status…there’s literally no work in Southeastern Wisconsin that I can do, being partially disabled, so I work as a writer and editor.

I am still for Hillary, have been for Hillary since 2008, and am going to do some volunteering despite my own health problems and my mother’s health problems (I try to help her out). I have been sending what money I can to Hillary even though it’s a hardship to me, because I need to see her as our POTUS…we cannot, cannot, cannot have Trump. Ever.

With our esteemed Fourth Estate now represented on the same plane with Hillary, I hope they can raise their bar a bit in the presence of her dignity and intelligence. I don’t have high expectations. The “media” operates at the level of hairstyles, color coordination, personal choice of voice modulation, and other trivia. Maybe some European journalist will travel along and provide real analysis and insight.

Hilary comes across better up close and personal than at a mass rally so the paparazzi should feel that they are being treated as the special beings they are. Too bad one can barely read about what Hillary would do to uplift the country because the emphasis is on making The Donald a contender. How did the press ever stoop so low? Oh, bottom line.

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Body: Last week I went down to Washington, D.C. to deliver a paper at a conference in the technical field where I worked, ten years or so and two or three careers ago, before the dot.com trash. The trip was solely an exercise in merit-making, since I doubt very much I'll get work in the field, but reconnecting with old friends was really great -- even […]

The Hill, "Court orders Iran to pay billions to 9/11 victims and families: A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Iran to pay billions of dollars in damages to the families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks." It's unlikely they will actually pay it, but the very idea that Iran should have to pay for an attack by Saudi Arabians is pr […]